Pro-Palestine Protestors Halt HRC’s Float at NYC Pride Parade

Protestors acting in solidarity with Palestine halted the Human Rights Campaign’s float during the New York City Pride Parade this past Sunday. The demonstrators intervened just as the float was making its way to Christopher Street along the NYC Pride Parade route one block from The Stonewall Inn.

The parade is held annually on the last Sunday of June to commemorate the 1969 uprising that took place at Stonewall. This year, the procession was led by elected officials marching down Fifth Avenue before the start of the parade.

At around 2:30 p.m., the pro-Palestine protestors unfurled a banner that read “No Queer Liberation Without Palestinian Liberation.” They then sat down in front of the HRC float and distributed leaflets. Some activists even threw red paint at the truck pulling the float, smearing it on themselves before unfurling the banner and halting the parade.

Footage from Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) shows protestors being arrested and zip-tied by NYPD, with at least one officer wearing rainbow patches. Journalists were cleared out of the area to prevent clear images of arrests being made.

“Shame, Shame!” can be heard in one video caught by WAWOG as arrests were being carried out.

The protest was organized by a group within WAWOG, which wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the Human Rights Campaign was targeted for its ties to arms manufacturing company Northrop Grumman, which is listed as a Platinum Partner on the HRC’s donor website alongside Apple, Amazon, and Google.

Previous HRC disruptions by pro-Palestinian protestors include an interruption of President Biden’s speech at the National Dinner event in October, where an audience member stood and shouted, “Let Gaza live! Ceasefire now!”

The President responded with: “Whatever you’re saying, I’m going to say thank—I can’t hear you.” The audience member who shouted was then escorted out of the event.

In February, the Human Rights Campaign held its annual Gala where protesters led by ACT UP rallied outside to bring attention to the organization’s ties to Northrop Grumman and demand the HRC call for an immediate ceasefire on Gaza.

As of June 1, the Human Rights Campaign released a statement on their page concerning the ‘Humanitarian Crisis in the Middle East‘:

“In Palestine and Israel, far too many lives have been tragically taken: young and old, children and their families, all of whom should still be with us today. Over the past week, images of the devastation created by the Israeli bombing of a refugee camp inside a designated safe zone have been gut-wrenching. The assault on Rafah must stop. What’s so clear in this moment is that hate and extremism are a global challenge—and we all have a responsibility to play our role in ensuring humanity prevails.”

The organization, however, has not announced that it will stop accepting donations from Northrop Grumman.

Many companies have already cut ties with Israel as a result of the ongoing genocide, which is reported to have caused the deaths and displacement of over 35,000 Palestinians according to Palestinian Health authorities. The Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions campaign (BDS Movement) has a list on their site that is updated to reflect which companies are linked to Israel or profit from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

WAWOG calls out pinkwashing as one of the major reasons behind Sunday’s protest. They cite a now-infamous image shared by Israel’s official Instagram account of an Israeli soldier flying a rainbow flag over the rubble in Gaza with the words “In the name of love” scrawled on it. The caption of the post reads, “The first ever pride flag raised in Gaza.”

This action by Israel is part of the ongoing backlash narrative that Palestinians do not support queer liberation in spite of queers supporting Palestinian liberation to justify queer resentment towards Palestine in favor of support for Israel.

The NYC Pride Parade continued at 4:30 p.m. just before mother nature gave her input and the celebration was rained out.

Photo courtesy of social media